


The Quad Bike Quash

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: First Misses [17]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 08:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: Q and R go together as a little duo - will post R tomorrow.





	The Quad Bike Quash

“A quad bike? You’re not serious?”

Even as he said it, Strike could tell from the look on his partner’s face that she was, unfortunately, totally serious.

“You’ll be fine,” Michael Ellacott said cheerfully. “Robin’s been driving it since she was twelve.”

Strike swiftly calculated that this meant the vehicle in question must be getting on for twenty years old, which did not reassure him at all. He wondered if his evening could get any more bizarre.

They were in Yorkshire for a few days, on two cases that happened to coincide timing-wise - a conference at which to tail a suspect, which had involved an overnight stay in Ripon the previous night, and then an appointment at the records office in Halifax to hunt through the microfiche repository for the history of another case tomorrow. On impulse, Robin had suggested they cancel the middle night hotel and go and stay at her parents’. She hadn’t intended to go anywhere near Masham, fully aware of what her mother might start to assume if she brought Strike to her childhood home, but driving the old familiar roads in the Land Rover had made her nostalgic for home comforts suddenly. She had lured Strike with the promise of the excellent beer in the local Camra-approved pub, and he had reluctantly agreed.

Things had thawed a little with Robin’s parents, Strike had reflected this evening. For a long time they had harboured suspicions that he had been involved, even if only indirectly, in Robin’s decision to divorce Matthew. The fact that he secretly hoped they were right didn’t help matters. But as time had gone on and he and Robin remained friends, Linda had relaxed in his presence. The slight air of disapproval she habitually wore around him had dissipated. It helped that Strike got along well with Michael, who reminded him a lot of his uncle Ted.

So he had consented to the stay, and been given Stephen’s old room across the hall from Robin’s. Airfix planes that had presumably once hung from the ceiling were ranged along the bookshelf above his bed, watched over by a battered, well-loved stuffed bear that had obviously been a favourite.

And now he found himself being told he had to get on the back of a quad bike. Robin had realised, after dinner had been eaten and cleared away and a couple of bottles of wine shared between the four of them, that the usual route across a field that she and her brothers took to the pub would be enormously hard work for Strike with his leg, especially, as Michael pointed out, now that the fields had been ploughed. It was too far to walk round by road, and no one could drive after a couple of glasses of wine each.

“Take the old quad bike, it’s still in the barn,” Michael had said, and Robin had whooped with joy. It was a long time since she had hared round the fields on it, a pastime she had loved in her teens. The excitement that lit up her face did not reassure Strike.

“I’m quite serious. I know what I’m doing, you know,” she told him now. “Don’t you trust me?” She grinned at him.

Strike hesitated. “I trust _you_,” he said finally. “I’ve just never been on a quad bike.”

“It’s like a motorbike but safer, because it can’t fall over,” Robin said. “It’ll be fine. We’ll stick to the edges of the field and go slow.”

“It won’t get up much speed with two of you on it,” Michael added reassuringly.

Robin laughed. “Stephen and Jonathan managed to jump two hay bales on it with that ramp they built, and Stephen was already pretty big as a teenager,” she said.

Linda shuddered. “I’m so glad I didn’t know the half of what you lot got up to when you were playing out,” she said. “I’d have had kittens. I had no idea you were so reckless.”

Robin smiled at her. “Invincible teenagers,” she said. “And I wasn’t going to let them tell me I couldn’t do stuff because I was a girl. I was lighter, I cleared four bales without Stephen’s weight dragging me down.”

Strike snorted, and Linda put her hands over her ears. “Stop!” she cried. “You were only supposed to use it to ride up to your uncle’s farm and back.”

“Yes, Mum,” Robin said with a wink. “So when was it last used?”

“I think Martin took it out a few months back,” Michael said vaguely.

“Great, it should start, then. Probably got no petrol in it, though,” Robin grumbled. “Come on, let’s go and have a look.”

She led Strike out to the big barn opposite the house, and Robin pulled the tarpaulin off the bike where it stood in the corner. She mounted up, fiddled and poked a few things, and turned the key which sat in the ignition. The engine coughed and spluttered, and roared into life.

“See?” Robin grinned triumphantly. “Hop on, Cormoran.”

Strike looked at her. “Um, don’t we need helmets?”

Robin chuckled. “Coward,” she teased. “I’m barely going to be going above a walking pace over ploughed ground, and it’ll be a soft landing if you do fall off.” She pulled the strap of her handbag over her head so that it fitted snugly across her body over her jacket.

Strike still hesitated. Robin pulled a cheeky face at him. “I’m going to the pub, to sit in the beer garden with a pint of real ale. Are you coming, or do you want to stay here and watch the news with Dad and be questioned about our friendship by Mum?”

Strike snorted another laugh and skirted round the shuddering vehicle. The seat looked tiny. Robin scooted forward, and he climbed gingerly on behind her.

“What am I supposed to hold onto?”

She threw him a grin over her shoulder. “Me. There isn’t anything else.”

Strike sighed inwardly. He was already far closer to her than he would have liked. Her delectable backside that he had so often covertly admired in a pencil skirt in the office was pressed back into his groin, and her hair was almost in his face. He rested tentative hands on her hips through her jeans as she set the vehicle moving forwards, and tried not to notice how her hips curved, how narrow her waist was.

Robin pulled the bike out into the yard and headed towards the field gate which her dad was holding open for them. Her mum waved from the kitchen window, and then they were through the gate and Robin turned sharply right to steer along next to the hedge.

The ploughed soil was uneven, and the bike bucked this way and that even at the slow pace Robin set. Strike clung on as best he could and wondered how on earth he had let himself get into this situation. He was a very long way outside of his comfort zone, both in terms of the vehicle and his proximity to Robin, which he was trying very hard not to think about.

She turned her head and raised her voice over the engine. “Put your arms around me properly,” she ordered. “Your fingers are digging in.”

“Sorry,” Strike realised how hard he was hanging on to her hips, his fingers biting into her through the denim as he tried not to be thrown off with each lurch. Reluctantly, he slid his arms around her and linked them, holding onto his own wrists in front of her. This necessitated leaning much closer to her. Her hair blew in his face in the evening breeze, its scent filling his senses.

He could not fail to be aware of the soft swell of her stomach pressing against his forearms. He had always preferred her curvier, and suddenly desire swept through him. He raised his arms a little, and this was a mistake, because the undersides of her breasts pressed down onto him as she leaned forward a little to wrestle the bike round the first corner of the field. It was too much, the feel of her bottom pressing into his groin, her curves in his arms, his face all but buried in her hair. It spoke to all his fantasies and a good few of his dreams, and to his horror he could feel his body respond in ways he was suddenly very afraid she’d notice. He tried to slide his weight back a bit on the seat.

She turned her head a little, grinning, and for one mortifying, stomach-dropping moment he thought that she had not only noticed but was going to mention the growing hardness pressed against her bottom, but she simply called “Ready?” and revved the engine.

The bike shot forward. Peering over Robin’s shoulder, Strike could see they were on some sort of track that ran along this edge of the field, sweeping downhill towards the next corner. The bike bounced and jolted. They were going considerably faster than the walking pace she had promised. He hung on tighter, glad of the distraction from the feel of her body against his. The field was long, but now he could see the pub in the distance, its garden backing onto the field, its soft lights a welcoming Nirvana in the distance. He both longed to reach it and never wanted the journey to end.

All too soon, and not nearly soon enough, they reached the pub, rattled past it, and then Robin lurched the bike around through an open gateway and into the car park. They pulled into a space and Robin turned a little, grinning at him, the engine still thrumming.

Strike disentangled his arms and sat back. A swift glance down told him there was no way he was going to be able to stand up without revealing his problem, and there was certainly no way he could subtly readjust things without her noticing.

Robin was grinning broadly now, exhilarated. “That was ace!” she cried. “I’d forgotten what fun this thing is!” She caught his doubtful look and laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s uphill on the way home, we’ll be much slower. Let’s go and get you a pint of good local ale.”

Strike nodded, but hesitated. The situation was improving now that he no longer had his arms around her and her hair in his face, but he could do with a little longer.

Robin looked at him for a long moment. He wasn’t making any move to climb off the bike. She saw the hesitation in his dark eyes and smiled. “I hope I haven’t scared you.”

He grinned back. “No.” Scared was definitely not the word. Definitely not. She grinned too, and the moment stretched. Suddenly she was gazing right into his soul, so close, and that was very much not helping with the problem at hand.

Robin tried to turn a little more, to look at him properly, wondering if what she was seeing in his eyes was what she thought, what she’d hoped one day to see, and in a moment of lost concentration, her hand slipped a little on the handlebar. The bike lurched forward and stalled, jolting them hard, and Strike, no longer hanging on to her, came perilously close to falling off backwards.

“Shit, sorry!” Robin hurriedly put the parking brake on and pulled the key out of the ignition, her focus on the bike controls, her back to him. A little rattled, Strike took the second he needed to get himself adjusted more inconspicuously.

“No worries,” he said quickly. “No harm done.” He swung himself off the bike, and Robin clambered after him, carding her hair with her hands to untangle it. Separated, back to a normal distance, relief washed over Strike. His heart rate began to return to normal.

Robin grinned up at him. “Pint?”

“Definitely.”

They strolled round to the pub door.

**Author's Note:**

> Q and R go together as a little duo - will post R tomorrow.


End file.
